dudacek

Counterpoint: he will not be one of the Sabres 10 best forwards, will not be getting prime ice time ahead of Quinn, Krebs and Peterka and won’t be a good fit in a Girgensons/Jost slot. Are you saying he is the replacement for Hinostroza and that will be best for his development? Or for Mittelstadt or Olofsson and that will make the Sabres a better team? When we picked Savoie I was on board with your train of thought, but it seems to me circumstances have changed. Im skeptical a very young team that will be expecting playoffs is going to add a developmental rookie to shelter. And I’ve not seen enough from Savoie this year to think he’s going to force his way into an unsheltered role.

Randy Sexton recently said in the athletic that Botterill insisted on Tage, which is something Doug Armstrong said at the time of the trade as well. Revisionist history? Sure he did because he was told Kyrou and Thomas were unavailable? I have no idea, but I do know that I never heard the “settled for the 3rd or 5th best prospect” from any source other than pissed off Sabre fans or gloating Blues fans.

I’m a little surprised how quickly the light dimmed for Peyton around here as a prospect, especially given his work ethic and this organization’s recent success developing players. His numbers as a prospect were very much in line with Kulich and Savoie and he’s put up 31 points in 79 Sabres games as a 21-year-old rookie. He’s going to get better and we’re watching it happen.

I watched Krebs some in junior and a lot in Rochester. His recent style of play is not out of character for him at all. He was always a pass-first low-goals player who played with more pace than virtually anyone else around him. The winner last night was right in his wheelhouse as far as the type of offence he’s going to be able to supply: exploding into space to create a lane, then laying the puck perfectly into that lane for a linemate.

Donnie started out his tenure talking about how talented these kids were and how much they cared about each other when there wasn’t a lot of evidence to support it. We found out he was right. Donnie talked about how he wasn’t going to teach these guys how to play safe, he was going to teach these guys offence. We are now the most explosive team in hockey. Donnie has more recently been talking a lot about not focusing on what could or has gone wrong and fighting to not lose, but focusing on what you can do right in order to help the team win. Three blown leads tied up late and won in overtime, against 3 of the hottest teams in the NHL. The guy walks the talk more than any coach I can remember. This team is reflection of its leader.

Guys, I meant 3C as in the 3rd-best centre, who usually gets the 3rd-most ice-time. Its not a commentary on linemates or situations. I sometimes forget this board consistently referred to Okposo last season as a 4RW despite the fact he was top 6 in ice time and among the NHL’s top 30 highest scoring RWs.

Not sure exactly when the switch happened, but Peyton Krebs has looked good since he got moved in between KO and Z. Over the past month he’s got 3 goals and 3 assists in 12 games and leads the team with a 58% Corsi and an on-ice ES goal% of 78%! He’s only been on the ice for 2 ES goals against total. He’s cut the giveaways to 3 over that span and matched that with 3 takeaways. He’s playing 13 minutes a game, is starting to kill penalties and even leads all forwards with 19 hits. He’s passing the eye test as well, looking like a real hound on the forecheck and the back check. He’s still only 21 and just 92 games into his NHL career. Will Thompson/Cozens/Krebs emerge as a 1-2-3 centre spine of a contender?

I think his better play (and the drop in play of Quinn and Peterka) has roughly coincided with when Donnie started giving the harder matchups to the Cozens line instead of the Mitts line. Not sure when the switch happened, but Casey has 10 points in his past 12 games, 8 of them at even strength. He’s also a +2 and sporting a 55.2 % Corsi. Maybe he’s not a good 2nd liner, but he is a good 3rd liner.

Moved into 18th overall in points tonight, 15th in points percentage. 12/4/2 since Mule returned. 16/5/2 overall with 23 in the lineup. That’s a .739 win percentage, which would be good for #2 in the league.

This thread is a question, not a statement. The answer tonight was “not too bad at all.” I’m going to make a callback to the sentiment “we need more guys like Reaves and less guys like Casey and Victor.” Pretty sure Casey and Victor owned Reaves and his linemates tonight.

Donnie said it’s about pain tolerance. He figures about a week

A quick look at the standings still shows the Sabres struggling to get out of the bottom 10. But games in hand makes that somewhat misleading. In terms of points percentage, they are 17th overall. They basically need to win both their games in hand on the Penguins to move into a tie with them for the final playoff spot in the east. More pragmatically, to get in they need 6 more points in their final 46 games than the Islanders get in their final 41 and 5 more than the Penguins get in their final 44. Winning most of their 4 games in hand on the Rangers and 6 on the Caps pulls them into the picture with those teams as well. The idea that they aren’t in the race right now is just bad math.

People talk a lot about the Sabres goal differential and how it’s a factor of them running up scores late. Another element of that though is the fact that they don’t tend to get blown out. You have to go all the way back to mid-November and the 5-2 loss to Toronto at the tail end of the losing streak to find a game that we weren’t “in.” In all 6 of our losses since then, we were within a goal with 2 1/2 minutes left. 18 “competitive” games in a row is a consistency unheard of around here in a decade.

Probably just as simple as taking advantage of the opportunity created by being in North America. Apparently some kind of paperwork is needed to even attend development camp. However, it does make me wonder whether there’s a possibility that they’re setting him to joinRochester next year, or even this spring after the Swedish league is done.

Just keeping winning. Someone will be the team that falls by the wayside. Make sure it's not us. Speaking of that, New Jersey has basically fallen back to the pack, which I did not expect. They are right there with the Rangers and Caps. Toronto, Boston, Carolina in, Flyer's Bluejackets, Habs out. Nine teams still in the race. A few more likely to be in or out by the end of the month.

If you're talking about comparing the emerging young corps, I don't think there's much of a comparison. Buffalo has better pieces and more of them: Thompson >> Larkin Tuch > Bertuzzi (who is older and a pending UFA) Cozens >> Veleno Mittelstadt ~ Rasmussen Quinn <? Raymond Peterka ~ Berggren Krebs ~ Zadina Savoie ~ Kasper Östlund Kulich Dahlin >? Seider Power > Eidvisson Samuelsson Jokharju < Hronek Johnson ~ Wallinder UPL ? Nedjelkovic Levi ? Cossa I mean you can quibble with some of my off-the-cuff rankings, and who knows how youngsters develop, but it's pretty clear that Buffalo is ahead in terms of emerging talent.

I can’t see it being a 3-goalie rotation. It will be Comrie backing up UPL unless one falters. Adams has been adamant about UPL’s playing time and Comrie is part of the future.

If Portillo is walking, I would have offered him a contract already. UPL/Comrie Levi/??? is firming up as the expected depth chart next year. Personally, I’m comfortable enough with Levi to have a Suchanek/Portillo type 4th in the depth chart, but Adams may prefer someone more like Subban. If Portillo is signing, I doubt Suchanek wants to be behind 3 young goalies.

Do you send down a guy who is on a 7-1 run playing against tough teams as your number one goalie? Of course not. If forced to make the call, I waive my 14th forward — the pending UFA who has played just one game in the last 6 weeks and has no goals and 4 assists in his past 14. But I'm with Inky. I expect they will use IR, or (the threat of?) an Anderson retirement to their advantage. Whatever happens, it's not going to affect a player who's going to be here next year, or our chances in the playoff race.

Rosen had 2/4/6/+7 in 7 games (replays clearly showed he deflected in a 3rd goal, but it appears once IIHF awards a goal it doesn’t change its mind). He was tied for 2nd among Swedish forwards in points and +/- Östlund put up 1/3/4/0 in 7. He got a ton of ice time as a middle six 2-way centre. Kulich was 7/2/9/+10 in 7. He led Czech forwards in goals, points and +/-, was 2nd in the entire tournament for goals and was named (along with Berard and Cooley) to the final all-star team.

Is it really a special hell? Or is it just a way to improve? What if he just makes sure Samuelsson and Dahlin stay healthy? After all, they are 16-5-2 when that’s the case, no matter how bad people say Bryson and Casey are playing.

I think we need to see improvement from at least 2 of these 6: Krebs, Jost, Mitts, VO, Quinn and Peterka. You can accept two or three of them playing at a 3rd-line level, but not all of them. (Despite the fact we can apparently win with all of them) Cozens is the only player we’ve got who has thrived under 2nd line usage. Okposo and Girgensons have been good in bottom six usage. Krebs and Jost have looked good with them, less so away from them.

Anderson has put up his numbers playing once a week against weaker teams. He will get action if one of the others falters, but the plan was pretty clear and the future may have arrived.

The plan seems to have always been Anderson as a mentor and someone to hold the fort while we transition to next year’s Comrie/UPL battery. Unless Comrie outplays UPL enough to grab 2/3s of the starts, meaning UPL goes down to get playing time, I suspect you’re right. Remember, we’re only a few months from adding Levi into the picture. Im sure Anderson signed being fully aware of the plan.

Sabres Live with Duffer and Marty daily. Maintenance Day with Yerdon and Lysowski every Monday is usually worthwhile.